The Experiment
by gluon
Summary: Rachel uses the scientific method to determine if Mr. Schue has feelings for her. She learns that you shouldn't ask a question if you can't handle the answer.  Readers have a chance to become authors and change the ending.
1. Revelations

"Hi, Mr. Schue"

"Hi Rachel. What brings you here on a Saturday?"

"I needed to talk to you. I have a confession to make."

"Have you done something wrong?"

"It's not about anything I've done. It's about what I feel. The crush I had on you last year has never really gone away, not even when I was dating Finn."

"But if you haven't acted on it, why do you feel a need to confess? If people went around confessing all the feelings they had toward someone else, life would be much more difficult than it already is."

"Yes, you're right. The difference here is that we've been working so closely together and we're getting ready for glee's big excursion to New York. I often get the sense you feel a little uncomfortable around me, that I'm affecting your behavior, so I wanted to clear the air and get some closure."

"Well, maybe there are times I'm reminded of last year. It's not because you behave inappropriately, it's just that it occurs to me when I'm with you and I wonder what you're thinking."

"Are you ever concerned that I affect how you feel, not just how you think?"

"Not really. I don't find myself on the verge of doing anything untoward, so I haven't worried about it."

"Will my confession today make it worse? I was hoping that by saying it out loud to you it would help make it go away, either because I would recognize how foolish I was or you would get angry and tell me off and I'd be mortified."

"Sorry I can't accommodate you. It's hard for me to get angry with you anymore. What I don't understand is why you have these kinds of feelings for me at all. You have all those good-looking boys chasing you."

"Feelings can't be ordered around. They just are. It's not so much that you're physically attractive, which you are, it's that the better I've gotten to know you the more I've come to admire you as a person. The good you've done here at McKinley in one year is more than a life's work for most people and you have way more talent than you know."

"Thanks. I appreciate that, I really do. But isn't there anything you can do to get the closure you want so we can be more comfortable together? If anything, we'll be in contact, bad choice of words, sorry, even more often in the future. I have a feeling we might find ourselves alone together some times in New York because of things only we would want to go see."

"I thought of that and thought of a possible solution. I'd like to experience the sting of your disinterest directly, not through your words, but your natural behavior. I'd like to kiss you."

"Kiss? Wouldn't that be going in the opposite direction?"

"I'm not talking about a passionate embrace. Hardly much more than I do with my dads. A simple kiss, 10 seconds maybe, on the lips, no tongue. Minimal body contact. Your reaction will tell me everything I need to know and put my silly crush to rest."

"I'm really not sure about this. Since you say you've thought about it, knowing you, I'm sure you have it all worked out down to the finest detail. What exactly are those details?"

"Well, I stand facing you with my palms on your upper chest. You place your fingers lightly on the sides of my waist. No potentially embarrassing body contact whatsoever. I lift my head up, tilted to my right. You bend your head down, tilted to your right so we don't bump noses. Our lips gently touch until one person withdraws any time they feel like it. No tricks. Promise."

"I'm still not sure about this. It makes me nervous."

"It's very important that you not be nervous, or this little test to prove your utter romantic indifference to me won't be valid and I'll go on having this annoying crush which, believe me, I want to get rid of as much as you do. Do you keep any alcohol around that you'd like to take a swig of before we begin?"

"No, I don't, Rachel. But that comment relaxed me, so I think I may just be able to go through with it."

"You're a good sport, Mr. Schue. That's another thing I like about you. First, though, I think you'd better lock the door and lower the blinds. Just to be safe."

"You're right. … Okay. I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Good. Stand right here. Remember, you mustn't be nervous or excited. Relax. Fingers on my waist. Lightly. Good. Now I put my hands on your chest. Just like that. See how easy it is? Okay, ready, bend, tilt, kiss."

_Rachel withdraws her lips after 15 seconds, walks over to the piano bench and sits down facing the piano. Will walks over to the piano bench and sits down next to her, but facing away from the piano. There's a minute of silence, but not to remember someone who died.  
_

"We have a problem, Will."

"How did you know?"

"Your fingers on my waist tensed a little, your lips vibrated slightly, your heart rate increased a lot, and it was I who pulled away. Now your voice has changed."

"Are you sure that's all?"

"No. There may have been something else."

"You said no body contact!"

"Sorry, Will. I tricked you into that confession."

"They could use you at Gitmo. Now what do we do?"

"I don't know. Believe it or not, I never allowed myself to imagine it past this point. I suppose I could convert to Catholicism and join a convent. Ever consider the priesthood, Will?"

"Now that we both know we can't go back. Even if we _do_ nothing, the _idea_ will be there all the time. We're going to want to kiss again. I want to kiss you right now, badly. This is _not_ good."

"So maybe we _should_ kiss right now, just to get it out of our systems."

ALTERNATIVE ENDING NUMBER ONE:

"Our systems contain more than the desire to just kiss, unfortunately. There would be no end to it."

"Speak for yourself, Will Schuester. After I slept with you, married you, became a star, bore you two children, and put the ashes of your 90-year-old body on my mantle, _that_ would be the end of it."

"You're an actress, Rachel, cry on demand and all. Why don't you play the sophomore role again and annoy the hell out of me?"

"Sorry, I can't do it, Will. I'll admit I'm good, but I'd have to be Meryl Streep to pretend to be like that with you now. How do you feel, by the way?"

"Some relief that I don't have to suppress my feelings for you anymore, but mostly there's a painful yearning. And you?"

"My mind's in a daze. My body's on fire. I need to leave before I explode. I'm so sorry, Will."

_Rachel rushes out.  
_

"I'm not, Rachel. I'm not sorry at all."

ALTERNATIVE ENDING NUMBER TWO:

[_Note from the site administrators: We have decided to remove this entire section because not even an "M" rating would support allowing it on our site. Too many visitors here are underage, impressionable youth whose minds might be irreparably damaged by the much too finely drawn graphic details of the antics of Rachel and Will in the choir room of a public school(!), in the car on the drive back to Will's apartment, then in every room of the apartment itself throughout a very long night of sexual debauchery. This doesn't even account for the fact that they are student and teacher and that one of them is under 18, for god's sake. Two differently-gendered members of our staff suffered Hudsons with both pairs of hands in full view while reading this debased material. If you can't sleep and you really need that sort of thing, try the disgusting but publishable smut in the Rachel/Puck stories. We apologize for any inconvenience_.]

YOU DON'T LIKE MINE, TRY WRITING YOUR OWN DAMN ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS:

Send me your own follow-up description and/or dialog (of even a single line) to Ending Number One (e.g., phone call, or Rachel returns to the choir room) or a complete new alternative ending (i.e., following the line "So maybe we _should_ kiss right now, just to get it out of our systems."). I will add a new chapter with all decently written, spell-checked, plausible new endings. They will be anonymous. No smut. No limit on number of entries. No prizes. No awards.


	2. Resolutions

Will had liked and admired Rachel for almost as long as he'd known her, and the liking part, in particular, had been growing increasingly strong. Days when he expected to see her after school were better than days when he didn't. Evenings after he'd seen her were better than evenings when he hadn't. It wasn't scientific, but he believed the correlation was strong. He found her sexy, as he knew every straight male faculty member still capable of an erection also did. He saw how they looked at her. Recently, he'd had a few unsettling sex dreams with her in a leading role. One day she wore her hair up and when he stood behind her in an empty choir room he contemplated kissing her neck. It was on his mind for days. And a few nights.

Her relationship with Finn bothered him in some vague way. Had it been because Finn was his boy, his project, and he knew she'd eventually break his heart? Then why was he a tiny bit pleased when she did precisely that? Actually he'd been a tad closer to euphoric than pleased. He commiserated with Finn, as a mentor should, but on this issue his heart wasn't in it. Will articulated all of these things and tossed the ingredients like a Caesar salad in his mind, over and over. But what did it mean? What should he do about it, if anything? She was seventeen and his student. His career could be at risk. She would soon be going places no boy at McKinley could follow. Could any _man_ at McKinley? Could he?

_I could have kissed her. She would have kissed me back. A real man would have just grabbed her and done it and that would have been that. But would a real teacher? Which am I? She'll come back, on her own. It has to be completely on her own. It'll be today, sooner rather than later. She has to, out of ego and pride. She has to if she wants me to think she's a woman who's not afraid to take what she wants, and she has to want me to think that. She has to if she's really Rachel Berry. I can wait. I can wait all day._

Rachel strode briskly down the hall and out the door to her car. She had no thoughts, her feelings were an incoherent jumble, her eyes couldn't focus. Her limbs and their controlling organs were dedicated to a single purpose: forward locomotion until she hit an immovable object. That object turned out to be her car, which refused to move without a key being inserted into the ignition and turned. That simple act was beyond Rachel's ability to perform, so she just sat there staring out the window at an empty parking lot in the gloom of a gray-brown near-winter morning, occasionally turning to look at the school door to see if Will might be running after her. He wasn't. Her car's engine wasn't turning over, but her mind slowly started to kick back in.

_You wanted him. You thought of him a hundred times a day. Dreamt of him. Daydreamed of him. Masturbated to him. Thought of him when you were lying under Finn. But when he said yes, you froze, then ran from the headlights. Like a girl, like a child, like a deer. Girls can't ask to be with men. You idiot, you stupid, fucking idiot._

She banged her forehead hard against the steering wheel rim three times. Tears welled up.

_Don't you dare cry. Bloody, stupid girl. You want a man? Be a woman. Go for twenty-two, graduate student, affair with a professor. Either age five years in the next five minutes, yes, a year a minute, or forget it. Forget him. Do it or forget it. _

_What would a woman do? Have the courage of your convictions. Go back to him. Walk, don't run. Give him the kiss he wanted, you wanted, make it better than he could have imagined. Then control yourself. Be a woman. No sex in the choir room between lead soloist and director. Oral counts. It would violate Ohio show choir Rule 4.2a. Good one. That's better. Smile. What will I say? I need a speech. No. Just say what you think, what you feel. The simple truth is mature, it's twenty-two. It's what a woman would say. And don't you dare cry. _

Rachel applied some lipstick, dried her eyes, and practiced an air kiss in the rear view mirror. She took a glee group picture that included Will out of the glove compartment, told herself aloud that he wanted her, kissed his face in the photo, and got out of the car. The return trip was a march in 4/4 time, steady and deliberate. When she entered the choir room, Will was still sitting on the piano bench where she had left him. He looked up unsurprised, rose, and embraced her when she came to him and pressed her opened lips to his. The passion of the kiss permeated their skin, spread like an internal hemorrhage through their bodies to their loins and their brains. Will's palpable arousal was no embarrassment, rather a source of pleasure and some amusement for both, and Rachel reminded herself of Rule 4.2a to maintain a semblance of decorum. The Kiss was repeated several times, and when both parties became convinced they had gotten it right and that a bed was a more suitable and comfortable place for complete and repeated consummation, they held each other upright in a secure and locked position. Rachel took his left arm off her back, kissed the palm of the hand and put it on her right breast, then kissed his mouth. She thought it's what a woman would do. It turned out to be what Will wanted.

"What happened to your forehead?"

"I accidently hit a… I was hitting it against the steering wheel. There was a screw loose. In my head. I'd been a stupid girl."

"Emotions can do that to _anybody_."

"Love and sex?"

"Especially."

"I wanted to be a real woman for you."

"That would be a first."

"That I'd behave like a real woman?"

"No, that I'd have one."

"Watch what you say about my mother."

"I didn't _have_ her."

"It was a closer call than you may have known. Then there would have been nothing left for _me_. You'd have been roadkill."

"No offense, but she _was_ a little scary."

"Then look out, mister, I'm a lot like her."

"I know. Should I be afraid?"

"No, just careful. I know it isn't easy for you, but try to be a little selfish. And thanks for waiting for me today, for trusting in me and not running after me. Did you _expect_ me to come back?"

"Yes."

"Because you're irresistibly adorable?"

"Because you're Rachel Berry."

"And if I hadn't come back?"

"I was planning to wait ten more minutes before I called Tina. I guess I have a thing for cute little ethnic girls."

"Call her all you want, you bastard, but if you give her one more of my solos I'll kill you. Now come to my house. I'll make you dinner and breakfast."

"Your dads?"

"In Columbus until tomorrow."

"Your neighbors?"

"You're my choir director. They'll think we're practicing. We will be."

"What?"

"Love duets. Park your car in my garage. I'll have it open for you. Then come upstairs with me and do the same thing."

"You have a dirty mind, Rachel Berry."

"Oh, Will, you have no idea."

Author's End


End file.
